Or, heaven forbid, you're playing a 2v2 with an Ost player who not only has his own tanks, but is dumping fuel into your OKW opponent.

Yes, can someone quickly explain the synergy? Last thing I heard is that the Opel Blitz now only gives its bonus to the Ostheer player who owns it. But what about caches in team games with both OH and OKW?

It also lets you know a tank is near by. IF your troops are spread out and you are looking at the right side of the map and then a tank zips past on the left shouldn't the troops shoot at it and light up their icons letting you know it's there before it slips back into the fog of war OR stay silent holding fire?
At least my eyes can't be everywhere on the screen at once.

Maybe that is the gameplay explanation. Unit recognition. If they do not shoot at each other how would they radio to the player that they have contact with an enemy unit. If they would hold their fire and would for example stumble upon a tank destroyer with hold fire enabled (so neither one is shooting), they should of course yell something like "Enemy tank spotted" but should it also bring up a Spacebar-attention-go-to? If technically possible yes, I'd say.

Except we're talking about a game here and its completely irrelevant what tank crew would or would not see.

That is correct, it is a gameplay element. The tank can see the infantry the infantry can see the tank both can and do shoot at each other but the infantry does 0 damage to the tank. Which leads to my question why was the choice made to make the infantry shoot at the tank in the first place when they do 0 damage. It has no other gameplay function other than alerting the other player of the presence of the infantry.

edit: And not even that if I think about it, the tank would turn its turret and fire at them and then the player would notice it, too. Seconds later maybe when they wouldn't have opened fire in the first place. Of course you can lure the tank with an infantry squad but they don't have to shoot to do that. A sniper for example will get himself killed.
A new player will yell at the screen in disbelieve why his sniper thought it was a good idea to shoot at the Panzer to give away his position because he is not yet familiar with the hold fire mechanic.

Mhn, I doubt that, they have to add a lot of mirrors to modern vehicles so you don't drive over a cyclist by accident. And they have more windows than an armored vehicle from 1944. And thanks for the jpg.

Isn't there a slight chance to do tiny damage from small arms fire to armored units? For instance, in CoH1 you could destroy 5% m8 with volks' mp40s. So it is not THAT futile as it may feel.

Yes, I'm "complaining" about the units that get NO damage from small arms fire. Like a Tiger or KV-8 Flame-Tank. And like griezell mentioned it is diverting that those targets draw small arms fire away from important targets that can take actual damage.

Why. Why does infantry shoot at things they can not harm and will kill them if they draw their attention towards them? I always wondered that since CoH1 and it is difficult to explain to people I introduce to CoH.

Why does a squad of infantry keep shooting at a tank so it will eventually notice them and shoot back? Or worse why does a sniper do this? Why does an HMG team unload belt after belt of ammo in a bunker they can not damage? Why is it in the game? Can't infantry just acknowledge that this is a building that is not going to be destroyed by small arms fire? That hiding behind hedges is a better option than opening fire on a tank that did not notice them due to a blizzard?

Please consider this: Let infantry with only small arms weaponry ignore heavy armor and buildings! Not light armor (like Half-Tracks and Scout-Cars) that they can wither down with enough persistency. eg. Conscripts should just stand next to a Panzer IV waiting for an eligible target (Grenadiers) to come in range. Heck maybe they can even use the P IV as cover.

If the squad has a Panzershreck or AT rifles these should autofire at tanks and buildings. Or if we theorycraft, should they only fire if right-clicked on the tank/building? Likewise small arms infantry could be forced to fire on turret gunners until they are killed; snipers could kill them more efficiently.

With this in mind should we maybe reduce the sight range of tanks by 5 units (meters?) The normal sight is 35 for all tanks. maybe reduce this to 30. Or go down to 25 for heavy tanks and increase it to 35 if they add turret gunners (Keep the T-34/76/85 and Open-top-Tanks at 35 for they can't get top gunners). Then it is possible for infantry to spot tanks without immediately being shot at. And you would have this dynamic of infantry shooting the top gunners to "blind" the tank and move out of sight.

Suggestion: While you're at it adding "Hold Fire" buttons to all Tank Destroyers, could you add a "Rotate Gun" button to all Defensive Structures/Vehicles (Flaks) so you can decide its default gun pointing direction after you've built it?

Use it in combination with a Kübelwagen, as it range is really good (45). When you get it early remember to get Panzerschrecks and Raketenwerfer against the devestating US M15A1 AA Truck. And keep in mind that the M15A1 does not have complete 360° coverage with its gun.

It is so frustrating to see them slowly walking to the MG after the gunner got shot, then standing up taking a look around, kneeling down checking the munitions belt and then starts to shoot. Please shorten this animation/setup time.

And add some more multipliers for each unit in its firing arc. So the MG either suppresses "harder" or kills more if a busload of people are in front of it.